The notion that having a child/mortgage together is a bigger commitment to each other is a common perspective, but just not true. A mortgage is a financial commitment to a property. A child is a commitment to that child, which doesn’t necessarily involve being with the other parent. Marriage or civil partnership is the only ‘commitment’ that’s directly to one another.
I HATED introducing our children's dad as my "Boyfriend" like some teenager.
I think the rise of the term ‘partner’ has definitely contributed to people who really want to marry allowing their needs to be overlooked, tbh. Because you’re right, it does sound ridiculous to introduce someone as your boyfriend or girlfriend when you’ve been together years and have kids. It highlights the discrepancy between the stage of the relationship and your actual commitment to one another. Absolutely nothing wrong with being married or unmarried of course, if that’s what both people want. But I suspect a lot more people who want to be married to the father or mother of their children would put their foot down a bit sooner if they weren’t easily appeased by ‘partner’ which sounds very grown up and committed but in practice is no different legally than being friends or acquaintances.
OP to answer your question: we got engaged on our three year anniversary, and married ten weeks later. We waited until three years as we both felt any sooner would have been a bit silly as we were focused on buying a house/careers to prepare for a family.
I was four months pregnant when we got engaged, but we’d already discussed a year prior that we both wanted to be married before a baby arrived, but didn’t want to delay TTC due to my age (31). So we started trying early 2019, got pregnant immediately, got engaged four months in and married at six months pregnant. But if we hadn’t been lucky enough to conceive when we did we’d still have gotten engaged at three years and married shortly after. Personally I don’t believe a long engagement would be something I’d want as I think a proposal should be a clear ‘will you marry me? We’re ready to marry’ with a date set shortly afterwards. It makes us both chuckle that our pregnant wedding photos probably look to outsiders like we had a shotgun due to getting pregnant but it was planned we’d shotgun from the start if we were lucky enough to conceive haha.
I find it so bizarre that you’ve walked into cohabiting and pregnancy without being direct about marriage and being on the same page with your OH, OP. The ship has kinda sailed now for an enthusiastic willing proposal and marriage I think as it seems clear he doesn’t want to be married to you, or he would be. In the happiest relationships I know it’s either been a mutual discussion to get married because both people are equally ready and excited, or all it has taken is the woman to give the go ahead she’s ready and the guy has quickly proposed within 6-12 months maximum as he doesn’t want to risk losing her or disappointing her.
At this point I think you need to know where you stand, sit down and tell him you want to be married before your child is one or whatever, and ask whether he’s on board or not so you can make decisions about your future accordingly. It’s not fair all the power is in his hands as he knows you’d marry him but isn’t giving you a clear ‘no, I don’t want to’ or proposing. Be cautious of a empty proposal. Where he proposes to keep you quiet but you can’t pin him down to marry for love nor money.
You’re going to be a mother so you really need to start advocating for yourself and your child and family unit. Once we fell pregnant I made a little list a month or so in of the major decisions I wanted us to discuss: the belief system we wanted to instil in our child, type of birth, finances, marriage was on the list and no bigger deal than anything else on there. It came up when discussing the other stuff on the list and DH shushed me and kept saying I didn’t need to worry about it, so I knew he had already got something planned and was happy to wait for the ‘surprise’! But I can’t imagine knowing we were going to have a child, already had a mortgage, and being afraid of scaring him off or pressuring him. Surely when you have a child on the way it’s waaaaaay past the point of fearing you’ll freak someone out!
Would you be willing to let go of your dream wedding plans to be married legally to him btw? We were both fortunate in being on the same page regarding marriage, we both wanted to be legally wed to one another and weren’t at all bothered about fuss and extravagance, we spent £500 max including fees and rings and a nice lunch after and were home for dinner. Only had a handful of immediate relatives as guests. It was absolutely perfect and we both loved the baby being part of the day.
I really feel for you as you’re in such a shit position now where either way you’re tethered to him due to being pregnant, one way or another, you’ve kinda both missed the boat for an enjoyable enthusiastic engagement and wedding as you’ll always feel he’s dragged his feet into it, but you’re just gonna have to be realistic at this stage and direct and accept that being married and having that legal protection is what you want out of this as you’re not gonna get the ‘he really wants me to be his wife’ from this man, the shine has been sort of taken off it. But that’s okay, it being all shiny and exciting isn’t what’s most important here, it’s getting married so you’re legally secure and protected as a unit for your daughter.
If he said he would never marry you what would you do?
I don’t agree with posters who think a man has to propose within a year or two for it to be meaningful, but we got engaged and married when I was 30 and I’d had a few relationships conk out around 2-3 years so I was glad to wait three years as we both knew marriage was on the cards, it never felt like ‘it’s been 2.5 years and no proposal, isn’t he serious about me?’ as we were sorting the house and TTC. I do think though once you’re pregnant and have a mortgage it’s time to marry or at least deserve a straight answer if he has no plans to. I’d be wanting to know why as the mother of his child you’re good enough to live with and carry his child but not marry.
And absolutely do not give your child his surname if you’re not married. I was pretty set that if we didn’t get around to marrying before our baby came along he’d have my name or double barrel it and then change it once we were wed. I wasn’t into the idea of being the odd one out in my own home having a separate name to OH and our child.
Sorry that was long, hope it’s given you some food for thought though.